Open Letter to OPRF School Community re: UIC Incident

Dear OPRF High School Community,

We have reason to be and often are very proud of our students and how they behave when attending public events in large groups. This year, for instance, we’ve been pleased to see 800-900 students attend our home football games to cheer on their classmates enthusiastically and without incident.

This week, however, we have been working internally to address an unusual and unfortunate incident that took place last Friday evening at UIC Pavilion, where the OPRF boys basketball team played against Fenwick High School. We want to provide you with accurate information about what happened.

This was OPRF’s second year to participate in the annual Chicago Elite Classic high school basketball tournament, which is sponsored by Whitney Young High School and held at the pavilion. Last year several hundred of our students as well as several staff members attended without incident. For this year’s event more than 600 students pre-purchased tickets. We decided to increase the number of our administrators and security staff members in attendance, with the knowledge that in addition, the pavilion would be fully staffed by UIC.

During almost the entire game, our students were, as expected, well behaved and responsive to any requests by our staff or UIC staff. The rivalry between our students and Fenwick was friendly and appropriate. However, during the final minutes of the game, which OPRF lost, some of our students—by no means all—became extremely inappropriate with their chants. OPRF administrators and security worked to curb this behavior. This was difficult, however, as spectators for the next game already were streaming into the pavilion while OPRF-Fenwick spectators and others were trying to leave, and the inappropriate chanting spread.

UIC security asked that OPRF students leave and ushered them out. Fenwick officials were extremely helpful and kept all of their students in the stands until OPRF students had exited the pavilion. Once outside, our students ran to the doors where Fenwick students would most likely come out and continued to create a disturbance. UIC campus police and Chicago police were on site working to move our fans out of the area. Our fans then crowded into a CTA train station. From what we understand, the CTA had to cordon off areas because they were concerned that the volume of fans rushing the station caused a safety issue.

In addition, we believe that some of our students may have been engaged in underage drinking. We will continue to work with our students and our families about how to make better choices.

As of now, we are fortunate that neither UIC nor Whitney Young has barred OPRF from participation in future events. Building administrators and I have been meeting with students since Monday to express our disappointment while using this as a teachable moment for our students. Here are some of the things that both the administration and students have come up with collaboratively: 

·        Meeting between OPRF and Fenwick administration

·        Letter of apology from Spirit Council to Fenwick and UIC

·        Student service hours at UIC

·        Student assembly in early January

·        Follow up discussions in Leadership classes as well as clubs and teams regarding this incident, with brainstorming about how students can spearhead changing the culture/behavior and peer-to-peer leadership

·        Positive events prior to and at the OPRF vs. Fenwick Girls Basketball game on Tues., January 26, at OPRF

·        Additional administrative support at events

In closing, let me state unequivocally that the type of behavior at the UIC event was absolutely unacceptable. We, like our students, do not want this to happen again. As our school motto says, OPRF High School strives to represent “those things that are best.” We are working hard to ensure that this is indeed the case at future events.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Rouse
Principal